Afternoon Showers & Latin Nights
Yesterday was the Summer Solstice marking the official first day of summer June 21.
I have been enjoying my less frantic mornings, longer daylight hours, and afternoon rain showers. The slower pace of life soothes me as summer is nearly halfway over for the kids and thus me.
Robyn got thrown a curve ball just a few days after school ended. Her Latin teacher had told his classes months ago that he would not be returning for the next school year as he and his fiance were moving to Kentucky. She liked him as a teacher and had hoped his successor would be as likeable.
Two days after school closed, emails were sent out that a new Latin teacher had not been hired and would not be hired as the school was deciding to phase out the program. However to get the world language graduation credit a student must have two years of instruction.
Students were given options in the wake of this decision. One, students could opt to take the second year at their base school as their chosen elective year round. Two, students could do the class as an online course via year round with a local teacher available for questions. And three, students could take the course over the summer for six weeks online with a local teacher available for questions.
A couple of them chatted in their group chatrooms about their options. By golly, they were going to get credit for world language. Robyn did well in her first year of Latin finishing the year with a 98. So a core group of them, she included, decided to do the summer route and get it over with.
I asked her did she not just want to enjoy her summer and take it in the fall at her base school? She said no, her elective was going to be an elective which I think is sports management as of now. Anyway, I advised her that it would get harder in content and that languages are subjects you would need hands on help with.
She was confident that she could handle it and that the internet would be an invaluable resource and the local teacher would be available. So she and a handful of her circle signed up—one friend that got a part-time job this summer, one friend building bunny houses and doing a one week study at Harvard, and one preparing steadily for TSA nationals soon.
Fast forward three weeks; they are all miserable. They hate the online platform as it is not helpful, they profess. And the local advisor was out of the country the first week and has not responded to a bevy of emails sent by all of them. And despite the course supposedly being self-paced, it does not grade as such. If they lay off doing coursework for a few days, it drops their grade.
Robyn embarks on a weeklong camp soon with Girl Scouts traveling throughout the Southeast and instead of being excited she’s worried about not doing Latin that week. Her other friend is worried about her week at Harvard.
It’s the stress in their voices that I hear in their group chats. It’s the “mom can you help me with Latin” nightly. It’s also “the mom I should have listened to you.” Nonetheless, I have been encouraging and helpful since it was I who urged her to take that “dead” language first place. I told her that if she hadn’t heard back from the local advisor by next week, I will fire off a nice but strongly worded email from a parental point of view.
While playstation keeps my son up at night until all hours, it’s the Latin doing the same for Robyn and sometimes me. It was after midnight, maybe 1 a.m., a few days ago when she sauntered into me room after spending time trying to figure out what grade she would need to maintain in this summer course to keep her spotless grade point average.
The group has been contemplating using artificial intelligence to help them through this tough spot. I told her they just need to calm down, breathe, and stop sweating it. Doing their best, keeping it moving, and looking at the bigger picture in life will get them where they need to be, I said.
It refreshing to see young students taking their studies so seriously but from an adult perspective will a B from Summer ‘23 matter 20 or 10 or 5 years from now?